


much have I travell'd in the realms of gold

by tallfornoreason



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 21:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tallfornoreason/pseuds/tallfornoreason
Summary: Finrod makes friends and influences people.





	much have I travell'd in the realms of gold

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #5
> 
> alternate title: when a fine pyt walks in front of your tree (do the creep)
> 
> for memer 5 with much love, and with many many many thanks for my beta

Finrod is either blessed or cursed by an abundance of cousins. Even in the Bliss of Valinor, Elves did not often have large families, and his childhood friends had thought he was lucky to always have a playmate around, and in such numbers that at least some of them were in good humour with him at any given time (of course, they’re all cursed now).

As things stand, it falls to Finrod to try to keep the peace between the sons of Fëanor and the House of Finarfin, which is how he found himself hunting with Maedhros and Maglor, and then found himself making a quick retreat from hunting with Maedhros and Maglor. It’s not that they’re necessarily _bad_ company, but they’re not necessarily good company either.

Their oath hangs over them, and the shadow in the north hangs over them all, even as they make an effort to entertain him. It’s impossible to lose himself in the hunt, or the fellowship of the sons of Fëanor, when faced with Maedhros’s grim mood, and Maglor’s forced merriment.

Death is an almost constant companion for the Exiles ever since the bright shock of Finwe’s murder had pierced the Darkening. His own doom now hovers at the edges of his perception almost continually since it first came to him, unbidden. Yet it is difficult to imagine _himself_ dying. 

He makes some excuse about wearying of the chase and leaves as quickly as he can without causing offence. 

Rather than turning back to Nargothrond, his path veers even further east. These are fair lands, crossed by many streams and rivers. Travelling under starlight, he can almost imagine the journey his grandparents had taken, going the other way. 

When Finrod meets Bëor, he’s singing. Finrod has met Elves of all kinds - the Vanyar of Valmar, Noldor of Tirion, and Teleri of Swanhaven, and Sindar of the Hidden Kingdom, Green-elves of the forests of Ossiriand, and he’s made a home with them all. He’s even been beloved of the Powers across the Sundering Sea, and the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. The second-born are something like all of these and something else. They are worn by travel, and lit by the hard-earned joy of those who have come through fear and despair to hope. Finrod does not yet understand their tongue, but their voices, raised in unconstrained delight, tell their own story. 

In their palpable relief, they are unwary of their surroundings. He spends most of the day watching them from the shadows, considering how to make his approach. 

They sleep with their eyes closed, and appear to be completely unconscious to their surroundings. Finrod walks among them and takes advantage of their heedlessness to look his fill at each of their sleeping faces, and his heart aches. He pauses a moment by the one he’d identified as their leader by his thick, dark hair and fine beard. Finrod takes a seat roughly in the centre of the group, and takes up the roughly-hewn harp he’d seen being played by the Man earlier. He decides on the clearest way to communicate the kinship he feels and sings of his own people’s journey out of fear and darkness, and their arrival in the Bliss of Aman, though he doesn’t follow through to the return of the Noldor. _Through sorrow to find joy_, he thinks, even if their sorrow has not yet passed.

They wake, one by one, and are caught in place listening in open wonder. It is gratifying to have such a rapt audience. He has always thought that he would be considered the musical talent of the family, if not for Maglor. When the last note has faded, it’s as though a spell has been lifted and he’s caught in a web of conversation he couldn’t begin to unthread.

\---

Nóm doesn’t need much sleep, so it’s rare to find him at rest, with his flat, unseeing gaze fixed on nothing, but there is something equally disturbing about waking to find those too-bright eyes staring into you. Most disturbing of all is waking to find him nowhere to be seen.

Nóm, for all his otherworldly wisdom, is as inquisitive as a child. Everything in the camp and the Men within it are new to him. He is equally delighted by the tools they carry, parts of their history they are able to speak of, and the games their children play. He carries a small leatherbound notebook with him everywhere he goes. Balan suspects he has a large stash hidden away somewhere, or a hidden method of acquiring them, because he always seems to have another, even though he appears to fill the pages in the blink of an eye. He’s always writing notes when they’ve done something he finds particularly novel, and has already sent word to his seemingly endless list of relations, and allies, and friends about the arrival of the Men of his kindred and those following behind.

Usually, it’s a simple task to find him if he’s lost, as he’s unlikely to be alone, and he is very likely to be singing. His voice has a quality to it that made it carry further than the mere volume should allow. All the world had been made with music, Nóm has said, and there is still power in song. 

On this particular morning, Nóm is nowhere to be seen or heard, and his cousin’s twins, Beril and Bregil, are even more suspiciously quiet. 

When Balan comes upon them, Beril and Bregil are arranging Nóm’s hair. Although _arranging_ is a misleading word for it. He steers them away with a message from her mother.

“You look a fright,” Balan says, sitting down, “you might have fallen out a tree backwards.” 

“I truly suffer for the sake of being a gracious guest.” Nóm said loftily.

“Here,” he gestures for Nóm to sit in front of him and begins finger-combing through his hair to detangle it before introducing the fine-toothed comb.

He runs his hands through the length of Nom’s hair from root to tip twice over and once more, just to feel the cool silken threads of it run between his fingers. Nóm hums pleasantly, and pressed closer. Considering the fall of his hair from this close, it almost seems to hold its own light.

“Do all of the Nómin have hair such as yours?” he asks, and Nóm turns an appalled face towards him. 

“I am a King among my people!” Nóm declares, drawing himself up to his full (seated) height. 

“I am aware.” 

“I rule over wider lands than any of the princes of the Noldor in Beleriand!” 

“Hmm.” He sets his hands on Nóm’s shoulders and turns him to face away once more.

“My hair is considered uncommonly beautiful, although of course it can’t be compared to my sister’s, which is a marvel unmatched, and our grandfather Finwe’s hair is, _was_ -”

Balan nods along and starts combing from the ends of his hair in smooth, even strokes. Nóm’s shoulders twitch, and still. He’s heard of Nóm’s sister, of course and, if Nóm is to be believed, she is as glorious as the great Lords and Ladies they had heard dwelled across the sea, in the west. It never takes much to get him started on a seemingly endless family history, with previously unheard-of names likely to make a sudden appearance in the patchwork narrative Balan is putting together.

“You’re very good at this,” Nóm interrupts his own flow of names and the traditional significance of hair.

“I’m well-practiced,” he says. Not only with his own two sons, but sometimes it seems like being Chieftain means being left temporarily in charge of any unattended child who happened to be nearby. By now, Balan must be an expert in the fields of braiding hair, patching up small injuries, and getting children out of trees. He’d also taken pleasure in combing and dressing Beleth’s hair for her when she had been alive. It’s probably not advisable to compare his child-wrangling to his unofficial role of Nóm-shepherding, however much Nom loves children, and even less so to compare him to Balan’s dead wife.

“You were saying?” he prompts.

“I was saying that, while beautiful hair is a defining feature of Elvenkind, it also how we chose our ambassadors to the Lords of the West, and later our kings. ”

“So… _you_ are a king because your hair is especially admired?”

“Is that not how it is done among Men?” Nóm asks expectantly, as though nothing could be more obvious.

“Not quite.” Balan is unsure if there is any way to end this conversation without applying a few very impolite terms to their esteemed guest, if only in his own mind.

“What are your customs in this matter? Do you arrange yourselves by height, or how well you grow a beard? There is some debate among Elves regarding -” 

Nóm is already taking out his notebook. Balan sees _Variations in sleeping patterns among the Second People_ before Nóm turns to a blank page, then turns to sit facing him.

“None of those! Did you truly you think my people have followed me and my father before me on the journey west because of our beards?” 

“You have a _very_ fine beard.” His earnestness is almost painful to witness. Nóm reaches between them, stopping with his fingertips just short of brushing it. “May I?” 

“I am at your service.” It’s quite a thing, to have the full weight of Nóm’s endless fascination bearing down on you alone. His hands are a little cold. Balan has noticed before that Nóm doesn’t give off as much body heat as a Man, and Balan’s face is perhaps warmer than usual.

Nóm laughs in delight, and brushes his own hairless cheek against Balan’s bearded one, before resting his head against Balan’s shoulder in an easy half-embrace. It is easy to see why a host of the Wise had followed him from the Blessed Lands. In this moment, Balan would follow him to the ends of the Earth, and further, if he could.

After a moment, Nóm rises and holds his hand out once again. Balan takes it.


End file.
